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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_differential_equation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_differential_equatio... Repetitive content, written at se

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_differential_equation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_differential_equatio... Repetitive content, written at several levels simultaneously, weird fixations on tangential topics.

scythe 4y ago
>written at several levels simultaneously, I don't understand why this bothers people. If something on Wikipedia is above or below my level, I just skip it. It takes all of three seconds to recognize. I've consistently found it to be a great starting point for self-study in all sorts of math.
- thebooktocome 4y ago
  A novice isn’t always going to know the difference between something they could understand with effort and something they don’t have the context to understand. It’s an incredibly common cause of anxiety in math education, and even if you’re not personally affected by it others may be.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    For sure, but Wikipedia aims to be a Encyclopedia and not a math course. Now it surely would be nice, if it could work more like it. That wikipedia knows my skill set and automatically hides or show additional paragraphs in certain topics etc. or even the paragraph in a simpler language etc. But this a bit more ambitious - and not really achievable with the current approach. So if I want a math course, I search for a math course.
  - scythe 4y ago
    >It’s an incredibly common cause of anxiety in math education I question whether this can be a root cause of anxiety. Simply not understanding stuff does not normally cause anxiety. Most people don't get anxious looking at, for example, Chinese characters. On the other hand, imputing that something should be frightening can actually cause a fear response: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-20380-001 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-20380-001 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030105110600024X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030105110... https://www.nature.com/articles/nn1968 https://www.nature.com/articles/nn1968 Teaching students that incomprehensible math should frighten them doesn't seem like a good approach. There are no grades or critical teachers when you're passively reading a Wikipedia article.
squeaky-clean 4y ago
Not only that, 4 paragraphs until the first citation, 16 paragraphs until the next one. All that information might be correct, but there's no easy way to confirm it. PDEs are a significant enough thing that the article is probably correct. But once you get into more niche math articles, a lot of the writing is incorrect.
- random314 4y ago
  Once again, any articles with incorrect content that you can cite?
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-integer_base_of_numeration https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-integer_base_of_numerati... I know enough to know the examples for Base sqrt(2) are not correct, but I don't know enough to write a proper example. For example if this is true "Base √2 behaves in a very similar way to base 2 as all one has to do to convert a number from binary into base √2 is put a zero digit in between every binary digit" Then Base(10) 3 aka Base(2) 11 converted to Base(sqrt2) would be 101. But it is actually 1000.000001 As RDBury on the Talk page mentions, "bases that are not Pisot–Vijayaraghavan numbers are not guaranteed to terminate or even be periodic". Whomever wrote that example just happened to pick an integer where the Base(sqrt2) version terminates and has such a pattern, and treated it as if it applies to all integers. > Once again, This is your first comment to me
    - random314 4y ago
      > Then Base(10) 3 aka Base(2) 11 converted to Base(sqrt2) would be 101. But it is actually 1000.000001 I don't see how. As per the expansion definition in the article 101 = 2+0+1 = 3 1000.000001 = sqrt(8) + epsilon.
nuancebydefault 4y ago
Would you be so kind as to mention the issues in the talk page of said article?
- thebooktocome 4y ago
  Nope. Been burned by Wikipedia editors being territorial and deletionist way too many times.

scythe 4y ago

>written at several levels simultaneously, I don't understand why this bothers people. If something on Wikipedia is above or below my level, I just skip it. It takes all of three seconds to recognize. I've consistently found it to be a great starting point for self-study in all sorts of math.

thebooktocome 4y ago
A novice isn’t always going to know the difference between something they could understand with effort and something they don’t have the context to understand. It’s an incredibly common cause of anxiety in math education, and even if you’re not personally affected by it others may be.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  For sure, but Wikipedia aims to be a Encyclopedia and not a math course. Now it surely would be nice, if it could work more like it. That wikipedia knows my skill set and automatically hides or show additional paragraphs in certain topics etc. or even the paragraph in a simpler language etc. But this a bit more ambitious - and not really achievable with the current approach. So if I want a math course, I search for a math course.
- scythe 4y ago
  >It’s an incredibly common cause of anxiety in math education I question whether this can be a root cause of anxiety. Simply not understanding stuff does not normally cause anxiety. Most people don't get anxious looking at, for example, Chinese characters. On the other hand, imputing that something should be frightening can actually cause a fear response: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-20380-001 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-20380-001 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030105110600024X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030105110... https://www.nature.com/articles/nn1968 https://www.nature.com/articles/nn1968 Teaching students that incomprehensible math should frighten them doesn't seem like a good approach. There are no grades or critical teachers when you're passively reading a Wikipedia article.

squeaky-clean 4y ago

Not only that, 4 paragraphs until the first citation, 16 paragraphs until the next one. All that information might be correct, but there's no easy way to confirm it. PDEs are a significant enough thing that the article is probably correct. But once you get into more niche math articles, a lot of the writing is incorrect.

random314 4y ago
Once again, any articles with incorrect content that you can cite?
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-integer_base_of_numeration https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-integer_base_of_numerati... I know enough to know the examples for Base sqrt(2) are not correct, but I don't know enough to write a proper example. For example if this is true "Base √2 behaves in a very similar way to base 2 as all one has to do to convert a number from binary into base √2 is put a zero digit in between every binary digit" Then Base(10) 3 aka Base(2) 11 converted to Base(sqrt2) would be 101. But it is actually 1000.000001 As RDBury on the Talk page mentions, "bases that are not Pisot–Vijayaraghavan numbers are not guaranteed to terminate or even be periodic". Whomever wrote that example just happened to pick an integer where the Base(sqrt2) version terminates and has such a pattern, and treated it as if it applies to all integers. > Once again, This is your first comment to me
  - random314 4y ago
    > Then Base(10) 3 aka Base(2) 11 converted to Base(sqrt2) would be 101. But it is actually 1000.000001 I don't see how. As per the expansion definition in the article 101 = 2+0+1 = 3 1000.000001 = sqrt(8) + epsilon.

nuancebydefault 4y ago

Would you be so kind as to mention the issues in the talk page of said article?

thebooktocome 4y ago
Nope. Been burned by Wikipedia editors being territorial and deletionist way too many times.